Category: Music

Gladys Knight & The Pips – Neither One of Us

Neither One of Us

Gladys Knight & The Pips – Neither One of Us Soul S 737L (1973)

The early 1970s were an interesting time for soul music.  The genre underwent seismic shifts.  Those musical shifts went along with shifting social circumstances.  As the liberal “freedom movement” (AKA “civil rights movement”) stepped back following its “victories” (which proved small and mostly temporary), and as severe backlash (including torture and assassinations) against anti-capitalist black militancy set in, there was a kind of metaphorical fork in the road.  The best and brightest black Americans could accede to the dictates of the establishment, forsake the “movement” in exchange for narrow personal benefit, or, instead, commit to solidarity with a large class-based coalition in spite of the scorn and repression of the vested interests and all their concomitant tactics of racial bigotry.  So take the title track, “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye).”   There is a long tradition in black music of “masking,” with two meanings embedded in songs (usually one light and often romantic, the other socio-political and often dealing with racism).  The title song could be seen as being about the decision point as the freedom movement and black militancy were receding and facing real defeats — in the face of state violence in the form of COINTELPRO and the like.  Stick with it or turn one’s back on it and say goodbye?  The song is brilliant, and one of Knight & The Pips’ best recorded performances, up there with their later hit “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

A lot of soul music in the early-/mid-70s drew on a sense of urban elitism.  Adolph Reed is one of the best commentators on that phenomenon, asserting that “race politics is not an alternative to class politics; it is a class politics, the politics of the left-wing of neoliberalism. *** As I have argued, following Walter Michaels and others, within that moral economy a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people.”  Or as Pete Dolack put it, “liberal ideology tends to fight for the ability of minorities and women to be able to obtain elite jobs as ends to themselves rather than orient toward a larger struggle against systemic inequality and oppression.  *** A movement serious about change fights structural discrimination; it doesn’t fight for a few individuals to have a career.”  The upshot of the now-prevailing neoliberal mindset is that so long as a representative proportion of racial minorities are given privileged positions in a system of stark and brutal inequality then the all forms of social activism aimed at the larger, systemic and institutional inequalities are deemed inappropriate, even invalid.  This sort of undercurrent flows through a lot of “Philly Soul”, which could seem a bit opportunistic and self-congratulatory.  But Neither One of Us conveys a deeper sense of conflict.  It was poised right at the historical juncture when different paths forward were possible, and people, in essence, had to collectively and individually choose their path.  It may not be explicit about it, but the album is chock full of a sense of apprehension about the future.  Gladys Knight & The Pips were deftly conveying that sense of the times, as were a few others like Sly Stone (Fresh).

The arrangements and production on Neither One of Us are by an army of supporting personnel — six producers and eight arrangers!  But it works damn well.  Just check the phenomenal “This Child Needs Its Father,” opening with a seductively lethargic melodic line played on strings and a growing element of psychedelic guitar.  Contrast the limp and boilerplate strings on O’Jays‘ Back Stabbers from the same year, which seem to simply magnify a single idea across many string players rather than using the orchestration to build something premised on the interactions of a multitude of players.  This difference is precisely that between the urban liberal “there is no alternative” attitude exemplified by the formulaic, immutable and homophonic orchestrations of the O’Jays, on the one hand, and the more diffuse egalitarianism represented by the sort of interactive, layered orchestration on “This Child Needs Its Father” (or, say, early 1970s recordings of Curtis Mayfield), on the other.

This is a great one, up there with the very best Motown-affiliated LPs, like David Ruffin‘s My Whole World Ended, Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Going On, and Stevie Wonder‘s best few albums.

Ryley Walker – Primrose Green

Primrose Green

Ryley Walker – Primrose Green Dead Oceans DOC 101CD (2015)

The influences are apparent: John Martyn, The Pentagle (Jansch and Renbourn especially), Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, even The Grateful Dead and The Incredible String Band.  This is definitely music made “in the tradition” (to adopt Anthony Braxton‘s restrucuralists/stylists/traditionalists taxonomy).  But this is quite impressive in that it takes so many different elements from the late 1960s/early 1970s folk-rock milieu and deploys them all so convincingly.  Really likable and surprisingly durable.

Holger Czukay – On the Way to the Peak of Normal

On the Way to the Peak of Normal

Holger Czukay – On the Way to the Peak of Normal Welt-Rekord 1C 064-46 400 (1981)

Before the advent of samplers and digital audio — with all the concomitant abilities to dice up and recombine sounds — Holger Czukay made On the Way to the Peak of Normal, a highly personal and fully analog set of sound musings.  Drawing on techniques from avant-garde modern classical (think Stockhausen‘s Hymnen, Steve Reich‘s “Come Out” and those sorts of things), plus the spliced-together rock music of his former “krautrock” band CAN, Czukay combines found sounds, bedroom/basement guitar/bass jams, comically unexpected instrumentation, and extended suite-like structures, to form an original and remarkably, infectiously durable album.

“To break up an idea into its ultimate elements means returning upon its moments, which at least do not have the form of the given idea when found, but are the immediate property of the self.  Doubtless this analysis only arrives at thoughts which are themselves familiar elements, fixed inert determinations.  But what is thus separated, and in a sense is unreal, is itself an essential moment; for just because the concrete fact is self-divided, and turns into unreality, it is something self-moving, self-active.  The action of separating the elements is the exercise of the force of Understanding, the most astonishing and greatest of all powers, or rather the absolute power.”  G.W.F. Hegel, Preface (para. 32) to The Phenomenology of Mind.

By sheer coincidence, I first encountered this album at the same time I discovered cLOUDDEAD‘s self-titled collection of 12″ records, and the two albums have a lot of similarities.  Czukay is less precious.  And that is fine.  When I first heard On the Way to the Peak of Normal I was particularly impressed with the way some of the sounds on it were “field recordings” made with a dictaphone — a technology now all but obsolete, but still pointedly in use when I heard this album!  I also really liked (and still do) the way a horn (french horn?) kind of bubbles up unexpectedly in “Ode to Perfume,” a song to that point made mostly with conventional rock instrumentation.  The pace is sometimes slow enough that you can almost hear the wheels turning to inch the magnetic tape along holding these sounds, but that only adds to the overall charm of the album.  This is a heart-warming winner.

O’Jays – Back Stabbers

Back Stabbers

O’Jays – Back Stabbers Philadelphia International Records KZ 31712 (1972)

Soul music underwent a great shift in the early 1970s, from predominantly dance-oriented music with a big beat to a greater emphasis on harmony and layered complexity.  The O’Jays were one of the leading groups of the “Philly Soul” sound.  Back Stabbers basically takes up the socially-conscious approach of the likes of Curtis Mayfield‘s Curtis, Marvin Gaye‘s What’s Going On, and even Isaac Hayes‘ Hot Buttered Soul and Syl Johnson‘s Is It Because I’m Black.  But, of course, the difference here is the emphasis on a smooth, sophisticated construction with a hint of psychedelia.  So, “Love Train,” which closes the album, is pretty much one of the epic soul cuts.  It is the ideal embodiment of the way christian philosophy — by way of gospel music — lurked behind the end goals of black militancy in the early post-Jim Crow era.  Nothing else here comes close to that song, but, then again, little else in the entire genre does.  If there is a complaint here, and perhaps there should be, it is that The O’Jays lean too heavily on a kind of urban elitism (or should we say “New Age Racism”) that would soon crush the remnants of the soul genre and pave the way for the abomination that is smooth R&B.  This shows in the way some songs seem like safe, mainstream-ready adaptations of There’s a Riot Goin’ On (“When the World’s at Peace”).  And also in the way the string arrangements are a bit lazy and complacent.  So, there is a tension, with elitism being at direct odds with christian universalist values (The O’Jays would further complicate matters on later releases by trying to join christian universalism with its opposite: pre-christian, pagan “family values”).  This one just don’t quite hold up to its reputation, even if “Love Train” surpasses it.  Maybe check out David Ruffin‘s overlooked Me ‘n Rock ‘n Roll Are Here to Stay or Gladys Knight & The Pips‘ criminally under-appreciated Neither One of Us instead, or even The O’Jays’ follow-up Ship Ahoy.

João Gilberto – João Gilberto en México

João Gilberto en México

João Gilberto – João Gilberto en México Orfeón TCI 10.012 (1970)

João Gilberto seemed to always take unexpected paths.  Following his rise to international fame into the mid-1960s, he did not release any studio recordings for five years.  He moved to the United States, then to Mexico for a couple years, then back to the United States.  During those few years in Mexico he recorded the sometimes overlooked João Gilberto en México.  The music is transitional, and while there are some simple performances rooted in his past work, with a focus on just Gilberto singing with his guitar, this was an album that notably embraced lush American pop in a new way.  That new turn is epitomized by a version of “Trolley Song,” made famous by Judy Garland‘s rendition for Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).  The album features orchestration, but it seems like that of a minuscule budget, deployed sparingly.  Gilberto would remove all traces of orchestration on his next album, arguably his best.  But orchestration came back even more prominently on the highly successful Amoroso (1977), which has little of the spark and vitality of João Gilberto en México, and the use of an American pop standard even carried over to the artistically rewarding collaborative effort Brasil (1981).  This is an interesting set of music, revealing Gilberto’s willingness to rethink his music in fairly fundamental ways.  Much of the newer (if still retro) ideas he introduced initially here would only come to complete fruition over two decades later on João (1991).

João Gilberto – João

João

João Gilberto – João Polydor 848-507 (1991)

More than thirty years into his recording career, João Gilberto released 1991’s João.  The master sounds as cool and relaxed as ever, but here he is backed by orchestration.  It is somewhat hard to understand why Amoroso (1977), with its treacly, Sinatra-aping, cookie-cutter arrangements, gets praised as one of Gilberto’s best while this stunning, superior effort is somewhat overlooked.  While he often was at his best in minimalist settings, with little else but his voice and acoustic guitar (João Gilberto, Chega de saudade), João might be the consummate realization of his music in a more elaborate and ornate setting.  The orchestration (by Clare Fischer) features strings plus wind instruments, sounding mostly like woodwinds.  The recording is detailed enough that the woodiness of the oboes comes through, and the flutes are smoothed over to eliminate sharp angles.  And the arrangements are superb — voicings move independent of one another and add melodic detail, always perfectly complementary to the overall mood (reminiscent, perhaps, of Richard Carpenter in his prime).  The orchestration is not so much underneath Gilberto’s playing as interspersed and traded back and forth against his singing, sometimes augmenting it with crescendo-ed washes of strings.  This is not a return to a style of his earlier career as much as a new facet that retains a connection to all of his strengths while also standing somewhat distinctly apart form other trends and undercurrents of his past career.

From the beginning, everything about Gilberto’s craft was suited to last into his autumn years.  He is singing here at such a slow tempo, maybe that is a sign of age, but it also encapsulates the reclusive, deliberate, insouciant, persevering, and, above all, incorruptible qualities that make his music so appealing.  This was one of the first of his albums in a very long stretch to feature new songs.  Released decades after the bossa nova fad had passed, this is, surprisingly, yet another Gilberto album that is among the best the entire genre has to offer.  Pure class.  Superb.

Weezer – Weezer [White Album]

Weezer (White Album)

Weezer – Weezer [White Album] Atlantic 554625-2 (2016)

Weezer’s “white album” is about as good as anything they have ever done, which, admittedly, isn’t saying a whole lot.  This is pretty superficial stuff, lyrically especially, and the music is mostly just a reenactment of well-worn pop-punk riffs.  No highlights, and forgettable for the most part, but still fairly consistent from start to finish.